You decided that I was worth saving
by Supernaturalfantasy1124
Summary: After S8. No one had to die to kill Katherine, so now Stefan is a human and Damon remains a vampire. Damon is on the rampage still after Elena left him for human Stefan. Trying to both lose himself in the pain and find himself without Elena, he finds a new supernatural threat. A threat that seems to be targeting him specifically. He has to pull himself together to save everyone
1. Chapter 1

Stefan's POV

The flames grew higher and I could feel the heat on my skin. As a human now, lighting bodies on fire felt wrong on so many levels. It had always felt wrong as a vampire, but now it had a new feel to it, like it was tearing at my soul. The soul I had only gotten back 2 years ago. Even though I was human though, I was back to cleaning up after my brother's messes. Usually it was just annoying, sad even to be doing this, but now it was different. Now that I was human, I knew there was only a small period of time I could keep doing this. Now I had a life, a short human life, but a life none-the-less, and I was damn sure I wasn't going to spend this life cleaning up after my brother like I had been for the past century and a half.

"We can't keep doing this Elena" I whispered, my hand gripping the empty fuel bottle.

"I know Stefan. I know. But it's our fault he is off the rails" she sighed, her face so full of grief. I felt guilty inside, but the more bodies I buried or burned, the less guilty I would feel.

"We may have been the reason he took, but there was always going to be something. Something would have set him off and along this path eventually. It's who he is" I told her again, but for the first time, I believed it myself.

I don't know how many times I had tried to tell her, to tell myself, that he was going to go off anyways and we had just been the excuse he needed. For the first 6 months afterwards, the guilt was almost too much to bear and we did everything we could to try and help him. The next year and a half was when I started telling her that he would have done it anyways and we needed to stop feeling guilty for his decisions. But it was this moment, 2 years later, when I finally believed it myself. Perhaps she could see it on my face that I had finally stopped blaming myself, because for the first time in that year and a half, she agreed.

"You're right. This is his choice. He is not our responsibility. Every time he gets hurt, this is what he does. Yes what we did hurt him and caused him to go off like this, but it would have happened anyways. The moment we had a fight, or I started getting wrinkles, or he saw children around remembering I couldn't have those if I stayed with him, or if I had gotten hurt myself. It could have been anything to set him off, it just happened to be us. This has to be the last time we do this. The last time we clean up the bodies Damon leaves lying around" she nodded, pulling her coat up against the cold.

"Plus we are human now. This isn't what humans are supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be doing things like planning weddings" I smiled, my fingers tracing the ring on her finger as she squeezed my hand tighter.

"Exactly. Things like deciding that roses are not a good flower choice" she laughed.

"But they're a classic" I smiled and we started walking back to the car.

"They're ordinary. And we are anything but ordinary Stefan Salvatore" she beamed, sliding into the passenger seat, giving me a quick kiss before I started the car. Just before we left I scanned the darkness one more time, hoping the light of the fire would give something away. I had never seen him when we cleaned up, but part of me always felt like he was out there anyways, watching us.

* * *

Damon's POV

I watched them leave and the place fell quiet again. The only sound was the sound of the fire crackling. I knew he was looking for me when his eyes would sweep the area every time before they'd leave, but with his human eyes, I knew he never saw me hiding out here.

I don't know why I hung around each time. Why I waited until they left to leave myself. Seeing them together only caused pain. But that's what I wanted. I could have flipped my switch 2 years ago, I should have, and many times I almost did. But I knew I needed to feel this. Feel the pain. Not only the pain though, but to feel the satisfaction it gave me whenever they'd come to clean up my mess. To know that I was making their lives harder. Also, to feel the satisfaction the blood gave me. I allow myself to once again feel that freedom and that power that I hadn't felt in a long time, since I had tried to be good. For her. But now she was gone, and I was myself once more.

At least, this is what I had been telling myself. That deep down I had been trying to change myself for her. For years I tried to convince Elena that I didn't deserve her, that deep down I was a bad guy, but she refused to believe it, and convinced not only herself, but me, that I was good. She was wrong.

She could have saved us both a lot of pain if she had just seen me for who I truly was. A monster.

All this began when she went of that damn bridge. Well, went off it for the second time. If I hadn't had given her my blood, if Stefan had just saved her first instead of that useless Matt Donovan. If she had lived and not become a vampire that day. None of this would have happened.

For a long time she tried to convince that that it wasn't because she was a vampire that she loved me, it was just that she had changed to see the real me, especially once all my compulsion had disappeared with the change. But no. We were kidding ourselves. Of course it had been the change. She thought once she was a vampire that she could relate to me, that just because she was a vampire that she was automatically bad like me. But even as a vampire she was good.

And the moment she was a human again, I was the monster in her eyes. She promised me it wouldn't matter, that she loved me and that wasn't going to change. But it did. She tried to pretend of a while but I could tell, the way she looked at me, the way her face would scrunch up when she found my blood bags, the way her eyes would sadden when I used my vampire speed or strength. That despite her apparently loving me, she would still wear vervain everywhere. I saw how sad she got whenever something reminded her of the life I couldn't give her. Children, growing old together, having a normal life. I was no Saint Stefan.

At first I didn't notice it, the change in their relationship. It didn't cross my mind that he would take her from me. I don't know why, I took her from him. Apparently, Stefan had lost more humanity as a human than as a vampire.

He was everything she had wanted when she was first human, the only problem was that he was a vampire. So when he became human too, there was nothing that was going to stop them being together again. Not even his marriage to Caroline.

Caroline knew exactly how I felt. She preferred being a vampire, and knew Stefan had no future with her. The only difference between us being that she had something else to hold onto. Where she channelled her anger and sadness into raising "her" children with Alaric and moving as far away from us as possible, I took a more destructive route.

I was supposed to die. The plan was for me to hold Katherine while the hell fire took us both, and I was ok with that, at least I was losing Elena on my own terms. But Katherine woke up. Stefan made his way back, he had been on vervain. As we heard the hell fire making its way towards us, Katherine was still long dead. We had killed her just before it came so there was no way she could have revived in time.

So Stefan was still human, and I had yet again been screwed over. That was supposed to me my cure. My cure to be with Elena. Fate didn't care though, and I wasn't going to take it from Stefan and kill him, even though sometimes I really wanted to. I couldn't even wait for him to die, because Elena would be dead too. So of course they got back together. It was really the only option.

I had never really wanted to be human anyways, I thought, downing the last of my bottle of bourbon before throwing it at the fire.

As I turned to leave I heard a rustle in the leaves, the kind only a vampire could hear and know it meant danger.


	2. Chapter 2

I felt a sharp pain in my leg. Before I could even lean down to see what had caused it, there was another sharp pain in my hand. I could see blood pouring out of my hand, a clear bullet shape was visible under the blood.

As I used my other hand to dig out the bullet, I already knew what I was about to see. A wooden bullet.

Before I could think about it for two long, with a couple of distant bangs, I felt five more bullets enter my body and I fell to the ground. One was in my chest and every time I moved or breathed I could feel it scrap against my heart. With wooden bullets in both my arms, I groaned in pain as I tried to reach my chest to pull the bullet out.

I hadn't noticed until now that someone had walked up to me, hiding in the shadows.

As I looked over I noticed the dark outline of a figure standing by the trees.

"If I had wanted it, you'd be dead now" a voice rang out in the darkness. It was female, and now that I had heard the voice, I could see that the figure appeared female in the dark, with long hair blowing in the night breeze.

"I'm a good shot. A great shot. And you are a drunk. A useless drunk who is too busy wallowing in his own misery and too preoccupied with the bottom of his drink to have even heard me approach or use my weapon. I could have shot you in the heart with the first bullet and you'd have been dead before you hit the ground. Not even knowing that death was coming, it would have just happened. Suddenly you would have been here, then you wouldn't have" She continued on and my stomach sunk at the thought of how easily I could have just been gone.

"You talk too much" I groaned, rolling myself over to find the best position to try and pull out some of the bullets.

"And here I was, thinking you were appreciating my delaying of your death. You know, usually I'm not one for a chat, I hate in movies where the bad guy talks away to the hero, describing his plans and what he's going to do, just wasting time until the hero inevitably escapes during all that chit chat and takes off or defeats the villain. So not to make the same mistake, I usually just point and shot and be on my way" she walked closer, but still not stepping into the light.

"Then what's with all the yip yap? Trying to bore me to death? Do your victims usually just kills themselves if they let you speak?" I grunted, buying time as I pulled another bullet out. two left.

"I always thought those villains were idiots, that I'd do better, be the best. So, I tried to do the opposite of what they would have done, but then I realised, sometimes there was method to their madness. Sometimes, it pays better to not kill straight away. Like this moment. I don't want to kill you Damon. Not yet anyways. Sure there's a bounty on your head, which is what lead me to you, and I'd get paid faster to kill you now. But you aren't the only bounty on my list. Your friends are there too. Plus, I only took the job to find you. I've been hunting you down for a while now, but could never pinpoint your location, you did well killing off everyone who knew you. Then this job popped up and well here I am. But I have my own reasons to want you dead. And your family and friends. Think of it more as a personal vendetta, that I will get paid for in the end. It's a win-win. For me anyways" she chuckled to herself.

"A bounty hunter? Who chases vampires? You're either a brave human or a stupid one. I'm going with stupid. How can you possibly think you'll beat vampires?" I snarled, pulling the second last bullet out.

"Oh I know Damon. I know that you're the only vampire left. I know all about your human brother and your human girlfriend. Or should I say your human brother and HIS human girlfriend. I know about your human friends, your witch friend who is off travelling the world, and your blonde vampire friend who has left you all. I know you're all alone, and that's why I haven't killed you yet. And about that human part" she stepped into the light, walking over and bending down into my eyesight.

Her face twisted in the way only a vampire's could, her eyes transforming. Her two fangs were the most noticeable against her red lips. Her black hair fell down around her face and it started turning back. I could see now she had blue eyes, but there had been no mistaking it, she was a vampire.

She stood up, walking around me.

"It's been fun Damon. We'll see each other again real soon" she laughed.

I had finally managed to pull the final bullet out of my chest and jumped up, fangs out ready to attack. All I could see was my bottle of the ground, lit up by the light of the flames behind me.

She was gone. And now I had no choice but to find Stefan and Elena and warn them.


	3. Chapter 3

I had decidedly not gone straight to Elena and Stefan, but back to the Salvatore house. I hadn't been there much since that day. Mostly just to get clothes and bits and pieces when I needed them. I hadn't slept here at all. Even last night in my drunken state I had flopped down on the couch and nodded off, not wanting to go back to our bed. My bed. Alone. The same bed I used to share with Elena.

She and Stefan didn't come around here either. They had moved out into a little cozy unit themselves. I think they had thought they were doing the right thing, by giving me this house. But now it was just a large, cold, empty building.

I had been pretty drunk by the time I had stumbled in to the couch. I knew I should have gone straight to Elena and Stefan and warn them of that girl, but I had been too sober to want to see them again. So I had found a liquor store, and I drank it. I still couldn't face them though and had dragged myself back to the only place I could think of. Something told me in the back of my head that they were safe tonight anyways. That the girl wasn't going after them tonight. I hoped.

I knew I had to go see them. I let my mind wander to thoughts of sending a text so I wouldn't have to see them. It would be petty and say something like "Met girl last night. She wants to kill you two. Run humans." But I decided against it, dragging myself up the stairs to have a shower, surprised the water and electricity were still connected.

I had slumped around the house, getting dressed and looking through the cupboard for over an hour. I was procrastinating, and I knew it.

Finally, I sighed, picking up the keys to my car and heading out.

I took the long way to their house. And when I say long I mean they lived 10 minutes away and it took me half an hour to get there.

I pulled up against the curb 2 houses down. I could imagine their confusion seeing me pull up in their drive way and I wasn't in the mood for them to burst out of the house firing questions at me. Walking silently, I crossed their perfectly cut lawn. It was a typical suburban looking house. Small enough to look warm and cozy, but large enough for a family one day.

My heart ached as the house reminded me of a vision Stefan had given me when I was going to become human for Elena.

I peered through the window. Past the lounge I could see into the kitchen where Elena and Stefan were eating breakfast. They were smiling and talking to each other, they looked happy. It made me sick.

I knew I could listen in to what they were saying, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Every cell in my body wanted me to turn and walk away. To save myself the hurt and go find a bottle to ease the pain. Instead I walked towards the door.

I didn't knock I just twisted the handle and the door opened. I was a little surprised. Yes it was a nice neighbourhood. And yes the crime rate had gone down since all the vampires had either moved or become human. But they were human now, with human problems like burglars and god knows what else, with no real way to defend their weak bodies.

I could hear them chatting away, with their poorer senses now they didn't hear me come in.

I took a second to clear my mind and try to turn my emotions off for the billionth time, but they didn't budge. So I just took a deep breath and tried to push them deep down, holding my head up high as I walked into the kitchen.

* * *

Stefan's POV

"So what time do you think you'll be home tonight?" I asked Elena, taking a bite of my toast.

"My shift ends at 6 and I'm not on overtime tonight, so unless there's an emergency I should be home on time" she smiled, I could feel her foot touching mine under the table.

"Well in that case I'll cook something nice up for tonight instead of left overs" I told her, my mind beginning to buzz with ideas.

"You should have been a chef. When we brought those ID documents for you we should have put culinary school on them" she smiled.

"I'm happy at the moment working as a mechanic, but you never know, maybe in the future. I have my whole life in front of me. I'm only 18 you know" I chuckled and she grinned. She opened her mouth to say something but then the smile dropped from her face.

"You know, I find it a little funny that with your new found humanity you decided to work as a mechanic. Especially since cars weren't exactly around when you could drive" I heard a voice from behind me and my heart sunk.

I turned around and sure enough, there was Damon standing in my house. This was the first time he had been to my hell. This was the first time I had actually seen him in months. I didn't know what to say to him and when I opened my mouth all that came out was "I was always a better driver than you though" and for a split second his face softened before it was hard again.

"That's because you drive like a grandma" he said, pulling up a chair and taking the other piece of toast off my plate. He sniffed it before putting it back down again.

"What are you doing here Damon?" Elena asked, getting right to the point and I saw his body tense.

"I'm delivering a message from a crazy girl I met last night" he replied, not looking at her, but playing with the toast, ripping it apart.

"What does a girl you met last night have to do with us?" I asked. He looked well enough considering I had been assuming the worst. He wore jeans and a black shirt and looked like he had washed this morning. Although he did appear a little hung over, it was the best I could have hoped for.

"Well crazy girl filled me full of wooden bullets" he said, his eyes flicked up and he looked at me.

"A hunter?" Elena asked, looking my way.

"Not just any hunter. A vampire vampire hunter" he explained.

"A vampire vampire hunter? What are you talking about?" I asked leaning forward.

"As in a vampire who hunts other vampires. She babbled on about being some kind of bounty hunter and there was a price on all our heads, but she had some person vendetta blah blah blah" he said waving his hand.

My mind began to race. This was the first threat that we had heard of after we had become human again.

"What else?" Elena asked, her big eyes looked at me worriedly and I was sure I was looking back at her the same way.

"Nothing. By the time I had gotten the bullets out she had taken off. I assume going to do some more evil bidding or plan some. Either way, I have warned you and what you do now is up to you. I'm not staying here" he shrugged, getting up.

I stood up, reaching out to grab him and make him stay to tell us more but suddenly there was a crash. All three of us stopped and looked at the object that had just been thrown through our window. It was a small ball covered in a hundred wooden spikes.

And then it exploded.


End file.
